Glory to the Brave (Ascend Online Book 4)
Page 16
“Of course,” I replied, bowing my head at the justicar and then turning it towards the dwarf. “Shall we? I promise there’ll be lunch, too, at the end.”
“I don’t really have a choice about going, do I?” Phillion growled back at me, having forced himself past his earlier confusion.
“If I say yes, will it make you feel better?” I asked while taking a step to the side and indicating for the man to fill the space I’d just made, conveniently placing him right between Amaranth and me.
“No. So let’s get this waste of time over with,” Phillion hissed, taking a step away from Dyre towards us.
“That’s the spirit,” I said cheerfully, giving Dyre a farewell wave as I turned to leave the prison, trusting that Amaranth would encourage Phillion to follow if he didn’t do so automatically.
Walking confidently, I pushed the door open and strode outside into the bright midday sun, holding it open long enough for Phillion and Amaranth to step through. Watching the dwarf closely as he stepped out into the light, I saw his eyes squint shut tightly as the bright daylight temporarily overwhelmed him, causing him to raise a hand to shield his eyes.
“What do you think this ‘tour’ is gonna do?” he asked as the door swung shut behind him. “Make me miss my freedom so much I talk?”
“That really wasn’t my plan,” I told the dwarf as I motioned for him to follow me, the three of us making our way towards the heart of Aldford. “But if you want to talk, go ahead, I won’t stop you. I imagine you and your cellmate have run out of things to say by now.”
“That wasn’t what I meant, and you know it,” Phillion answered, the anger in his voice returning. “I meant about the Dread Crew. If you think you’re going to get anything from me, you’re wasting your time. You might as well take me back to my cell.”
“What makes you think I want something from you?” I asked, glancing at the dwarf with a raised eyebrow.
“Because you’re here,” Phillion replied, this time sounding less sure than he had seconds earlier.
“And where else do you think I would be?” I queried before turning away to point at a building that was coming up ahead. “Oh, we’re almost at our first stop. This building here is our crafting hall—pretty much everything in Aldford at this point has come through this place by now. Be it tool, armor, weapon, nail, plank—I’m sure you get the picture.”
“No, I really don’t,” Phillion stated, coming to a sudden stop and folding his arms across his chest. “Seriously, why the hell are you here right now and not off fighting today, Lyrian? There has to be something you want if you’re here.”
Stopping midstride at the dwarf’s statement, it was my turn to stare back at him in what I hoped was sufficient confusion and disbelief.
“You’re kidding me, right?” I said, projecting my best wary tone. “You have to know that the fighting is over by now…don’t you?”
“The hell are you talking about?” Phillion demanded, the familiar anger returning on his face.
“The fighting on the plains,” I clarified, shaking my head at the man. “It’s over. We took back Shadow’s Fall the day after we captured all of you. We haven’t seen any sign of your friends in days.”
“You are full of shit,” Phillion retorted. “I don’t know what you think lying is going to get you, but go ahead if it makes you feel better.”
“Uh, why would I lie about something like that?” I asked the angry dwarf. “I’m sure you guys all have an offline chat or something set up back in reality, right? That’d be easy to figure out.”
“Of course, we do!” Phillion replied a little too harshly. “And that’s why I know you’re full of shit.”
“Oh,” I said in a soft voice, despite feeling my heart begin to race at what I’d just heard. “Damn, man, that sucks.”
“Huh?” Phillion demanded. “What do you mean?”
Saying nothing in response, I simply shook my head at the question before turning back towards the Crafting Hall ahead. “Come on, let’s keep moving.”
Not looking to see if he followed me, I resumed our route, managing several steps before I heard more footsteps following behind me. Slowing my pace, I allowed for Amaranth and Phillion to catch up, the three of us walking silently towards the crafting hall and eventually inside.
Could the Dread Crew be lying to our captives? I asked myself as I walked, processing everything that I’d learned from my exchange with Phillion just now and wondering how much of it was true and if the dwarf wasn’t attempting to mislead me on his own. If I take what he let slip at face value, then does that mean they’ve told the prisoners that they’re still fighting on the plains? Or have they left them completely in the dark, assuming that they’ll talk? They have to know that two of them chose to cut their losses by now and abandon the war. But then on the flip side too, Phillion could be trying to fake me out…
I cut my train of thought off with a mental sigh, feeling a wave of tiredness and frustration shoot through me as I contemplated all of the double thinking that was becoming all too common in my life. Trust, as Stanton had drilled into me during our brief lesson today, was a precious commodity that rapidly shrank the higher the stakes became, eventually petering out into near nothing. Given that we were effectively fighting for Aldford’s future, and quite possibly Eberia’s by extension, I felt that I’d already reached that point, making me wish for the days where my biggest concern had been trying not to get eaten by a giant spider.
Which knowing this game, could still very well happen tomorrow, I added with one last wistful thought before turning my attention back towards Phillion and our arrival to the carpentry section of the crafting hall, which as always, was a bustling hive of activity.
“I guess I don’t need to explain what this area is,” I said in a loud voice by way of explanation as we entered the room and stepped to the side, the comforting smell of wood and sawdust mixing with the sounds of countless saws, hammers, and chisels in action. “Here is where all of our woodworking is done and all of the framing for our buildings and palisade is planned out. Right now, as you can see, things are a bit calm, but that’s mostly because we’re so close to lunch. In an hour or so, this place will be packed again.”
“This isn’t packed?” Phillion shouted back at me with a glare of disbelief before turning back towards the room and the dozen craftsmen scattered around it.
“Nah,” I replied, motioning for the man to look at the ceiling, where a second level above our floor was visible, along with a rope crane to help move heavier objects up and down. “That thing is pretty much always in use when this place is fully staffed to move stuff up and down. My guess is that they got the first lunch today.”
“There’s another floor…” the dwarf grunted in response, his eyes looking up, and his mouth dropping open in awe.
“Let’s keep moving,” I called out after letting the man take in the room for a few more seconds, his wide eyes twisting to look back at me. “The other rooms here are a fair bit quieter and aren’t nearly as dusty.”
To emphasize the point, I slapped a hand on my armored shoulder which caused a faint cloud of sawdust to billow upwards, despite the fact that we’d been in the room for barely more than a few seconds. Staring blankly at me for a pair of heartbeats, Phillion glanced back towards the room one last time before the three of us resumed our tour.
“So this next room is our tailoring, or I guess textiles workshop,” I told the dwarf as we entered a new room, the busy noise that we’d heard earlier fading in favor of soft whirring. “We’re in the process of moving away from spinning wheels and upgrading into spinning jennies, but—hey are you okay?”
I paused having seen that the dwarf had stopped just shy of the room’s entrance, clearly stunned by what he saw, his eyes rapidly scanni
ng back and forth between all the machinery in the room.
“I…uh, I don’t know,” Phillion answered, all of the anger, attitude, and belligerence that he’d been showing before we entered the building having vanished. “This—I—this is not what I expected.”
“What do you mean?” I asked, cocking my head at the man. “Haven’t you crafted before?”
“Nothing like this,” he replied. “Nothing even close to this scale. No one has anything like this out here.”
“Really?” I grunted in disbelief. “How the hell did you guys outfit yourselves then?”
“Slowly, and by hand,” Phillion answered, showing no hesitation in answering the question. “Why do you think we started raiding those caravans? They had shit we needed for gear.”
“They had shit we needed too,” I answered, my voice turning hard as I spoke. “Not to say anything about the actual people that were escorting those caravans.”
“Yeah…” Phillion answered before falling silent, tearing away his eyes away from mine and staring out towards the room.
Moving on from there, the remainder of the tour sped by at a decent pace, the three of us passing through the rest of the crafting hall in near complete silence as I showcased Aldford’s growing industrial base. Even the crown jewel of my tour, a slow walk through the foundry, did little to break the cloud that had fallen over him. At least not beyond an initial widening of the eyes and a brief stumble when he saw the sheer quantity of iron that we had available to us.
“So that’s our crafting hall in all its glory,” I said as we finally stepped outside, exiting the sweltering heat of the Foundry behind us. “Next, we’ll cut through town, and I’ll show you the palisade that we’re building, but don’t worry, we won’t get too close, else there’s a good chance we’ll get roped into helping.”
I paused to flash a grin at Phillion, who simply looked back at me with a blank expression, saying nothing.
“Then after that, we’ll stop by the arena and see if there are any decent fights or matches going on,” I continued, having grown used to the dwarf’s stony face and quiet demeanor. “Which also happens to be right beside the field kitchen that we’ve set up to help feed everyone during the day. How does that all sound?”
“You guys have an arena?” Phillion asked weakly, barely speaking loud enough for me to hear over the noise of the foundry behind us.
“Well, sure, of course we do,” I said as the three of us walked towards the town square, which contained the massive base of the ætherwarped oak tree that dominated Aldford’s sky above. “We use it as a place to blow off some steam, as well as a training area, too. Plus, we’re actually starting to develop a pretty competitive dueling culture here in town, so some of the matches can be pretty intense to watch.”
Grunting vaguely at my statement, Phillion fell silent once more as the three of us passed through the town square, the dwarf’s head unable to resist canting upwards as we passed by the tree. Wanting to make sure that it made the appropriate impact, I let the man set the pace as we walked, giving him the opportunity to gawk at our growing town square. Eventually, our tour moved onto our next stop at the northeastern edge of Aldford where the construction was the heaviest. Taking care to stay out of the way of the building efforts as we approached the palisade, I kept up a constant commentary of our construction efforts thus far, telling the dwarf of our plans to expand the town. After a few minutes, I eventually began to realize that my words were falling on deaf ears once again, after noticing Phillion’s slack-jawed and bewildered expression.
“Hey, how about we skip ahead and go straight to lunch and sit down?” I asked, giving the man a nudge and causing him to snap out of his reverie. “You look a little bit overwhelmed right now.”
“S-sure,” he said slowly, a hand coming up to brush away a line of sweat that had formed across his brow. “That would be great.”
Nodding at the dwarf, I motioned for him to follow me, the three of us cutting through the construction area and towards the northern end of town until a large tent with its sides drawn open came into view. As we approached, an enticing scent of cooked meat wafted through the air towards us, the aroma causing even my unused stomach to gurgle in anticipation. Given my ætherwarped condition, I rarely even bothered to eat in-game, often working straight through mealtimes, but that didn’t mean that food had entirely lost its effect on me.
Especially not when the food in question was cooked by Aldford’s resident gourmet chef.
“Who be dere?!” a shrill voice demanded, almost the same instant that the three of us entered the tent. “Second lunch isn’t time for yet! Oh! It be you…”
“Hello, Ragna,” I said, smiling at the half-orc woman who was advancing towards us with an angry expression on her face and a thick wooden spoon in her hand. “How are you doing today?”
“Busy, like every day always be,” she answered, her demeanor softening as Amaranth walked forward towards her, purring loud enough for all of us to hear. “Too many layabouts here making Ragna’s life hard. Thankful blue cat at least carries weight for many.”
“Does he now?” I asked with a bit of surprise as I saw Ragna reach down to stroke Amaranth’s head with a smile as he leaned into her affectionately.
“For true,” the half-orc matron stated. “Blue cat brings me two big snakes or beetles every morning. Help keep things fresh. Never talks back. Offer him all the meat he wants elsewise. Best partnership.”
“I can see that,” I said dryly, watching Ragna begin to scratch behind Amaranth’s ear, causing the cat’s shameless purrs to grow even louder.
“Hrm?” Ragna grunted, her eyes darting up from the cat after hearing me mention the dwarf and fixating on him. “This be one of our prisoners that you bring back? Ragna not seen any yet.”
“He is,” I confirmed, glancing over towards Phillion, who was looking at the woman with a noticeable bit of trepidation.
“Hm,” Ragna mused as she stepped forward to inspect Phillion, carefully appraising the dwarf like she would a choice cut at a butcher shop. After a few seconds, she turned to me, a scowl on her face. “This one is too lean and thick, will take time to break down in pot. Bring meaty prisoners next time.”
“Uh, Lyrian, what does—Hey! Ow! That hurt!” Phillion started to say in a rapidly panicking voice before suddenly pitching higher as Ragna’s hand darted out to pinch his arm as if checking to see how much fat it bore.
“Hrmpt!” Ragna spat, unamused by what she felt as her hand retreated from the dwarf. “Ragna will do best to make tasty. No promises. Bring him back to block and hold him strong. Ragna will make quick with knife.”
“You’re going to do what?!” Phillion yelled, his voice reaching a new level of panic as he took a step backward. “Lyrian!”
“Whoa, hold on! I brought him here to eat lunch!” I exclaimed, holding a hand up at the half-orc woman to slow her down. “Not to serve him for lunch!”
“Hrm, Ragna knows,” she replied with a hearty laugh, flashing a set of sharp teeth towards me and Phillion. “Ragna just tease…but also want to remind prisoner of consequences if not obey rules.”
She finished her statement by leveling her wooden spoon at the dwarf threateningly.
“Prisoner understands?”
“S-sure, I understand,” Phillion answered, holding his hands out peacefully. “I’ll behave. I promise.”
“Good. Ragna will be watching,” the woman affirmed before inclining her head deeper into the tent. “Now, Ragna has some snake cakes and beetle stew ready. Take and get out of hair. Second lunch coming. Much work still to do.”
With that, Ragna turned away from us and briskly walked back towards a large cauldron and oven set up on the far side of the tent, where several other townsfolk and adventurers were busily helping prepare for the coming meal.
“Lyrian, what the fuck was that?” Phillion demanded in a quiet voice once Ragna had left earshot. “Was she really going to cook me?”
“Uh, if I asked her to, probably,” I answered, giving the dwarf a dismissive shrug as if the question didn’t matter. “But you’d have to really piss me off. Anyway, let’s get you a few of those cakes before they’re all gone, they’re actually really tasty when you dip them into the stew. Then we can grab a seat on the stands at the arena.”
Ignoring the look of disbelief that I knew to be on Phillion’s face, I continued even deeper into the tent until I found the table of food that Ragna had mentioned. Grabbing a cake and a wooden bowl filled with stew, I waited for Phillion to catch up, eventually leading the three of us out of the tent and towards the arena. On our way out, I couldn’t help but smile when I noticed out of the corner of my eye that Amaranth had somehow found a large shank of meat and was carrying it with him in his mouth. A few minutes later, the three of us found ourselves sitting in the very front row of the stands that bordered a sandy—if slightly blood-colored—field.